Readings in Contemporary Poetry
John Ashbery and Paolo Javier
Thursday, March 10, 2011, 6:30pm, Dia Chelsea
Thursday, March 10, 2011, 6:30pm
535 West 22nd St.
New York City
Introduction by Vincent Katz
John Ashbery
Idea of Steve
based on someone else, named Matt
(another uncluttered name), whom I disliked
for no reason other than having once thought
he misprised me, which I didn’t really believe. (Whew!)
This is getting complicated, like always.
Let’s leave Steve at the wellhead of a dream,
where he belongs, and belongs also to others
who will make fun of him and gradually come to despise
themselves for doing so. He was a nice person and besides
didn’t deserve our unremitting attention, though
his bumper stickers indicated otherwise. Susan was different.
Who dials the phone and is further gone into snow
than the mass of individuals could be? She is quiet now,
she too.
—John Ashbery
Paolo Javier
TRINYSTEASER
Love as a maximum ablution
No tenements. L’amour at sea
unwrit a diver riddle
a diver riddle fraction lyric animé
somber, frisky, fed supplicant chose sequence
Sarajevo’s era recalled
Will fucking among stranger armadas question the equation
taunt port of entry for adored id dulcinea
ocular riddles pattern importune
lair Im in rattled at two
hail circuitry!
between grand echelon laid open port west of entry
border to border borders sold in glove
color of rose averred, intoxicated envy at scenic rate
sex lead lantern
to know crescendo in summit question colloquy
lair Im rattled into
rigorous voyage a picador Jihad
in total tyranny, carnage, sullied ladle deicide
what murder they’ll second next
all gold in us
despair, anxiety, plain entry
Saddam for Sunni ranks satyrs
magnificent diaspora of Amazons to heed us
I comfort Eros, buttons intact
lost seismic nautilus
o diem italic dads Ive bitten
I brag!
o Oracle ruins
my entire sustenance induce coma all experience
all gold in us, sanguine, solar, terrible entry synapse appear
synapse
I compare a supplicant
murder, grave, pulsating
sub-prime synod atlas serbis soiled I
assume redundant agave tan
Etreus destiny Aquinas in lessons
pigeons in the circle sojourn kneeling
Christian aspersion aspersion simpering